Lessons From Stardew Valley: Part One

There's a video game that I absolutely love.

Both of my kids play it too (there is a 27-year age gap between us), and we all love and enjoy it equally.

It costs very little money and has zero ads. You buy it once and don't need an internet connection to play it.

It is called Stardew Valley.

I don't expect you to have played this game, nor do I expect that you will play this game after reading this post.

I simply want to extract and share some lessons I've learned from this game.

I have no idea how many parts this will come in or when they will come, so I'm starting today with Part One.

***

Stardew Valley is essentially a very relaxing game where you build a life in a small town.

Part of the game involves developing various skills such as farming, foraging, and fishing.

I spend a lot of time fishing in Stardew Valley.

I have never fished in real life.

As you might imagine, when you practice a skill in the game—like fishing—you start to level up in that skill.

I noticed a very interesting line that popped up as I was fishing the other day.

The line showed up almost as a small pop-up notification in the bottom-left corner of my screen, as I was fishing.

The line said, "You've got some new ideas to sleep on."

As part of the game, you play a single "day" at a time, and then at the appropriate time of night, you go to bed. When you wake up, you start another day and the process repeats.

I noticed that on the occasions when I received that message, "You've got some new ideas to sleep on," after going to bed that night, I would level up in the skill I was practicing—for me, that's fishing.

***

I want to take that single line and unpack it a bit.

You've got some new ideas to sleep on.

If you're the kind of person who likes to learn new things—the very fact that you're reading these words right now means you are—then I think there's a lot of wisdom in this single line.

You likely consume a variety of content throughout your day.

At some point in your day, whether you realize it or not, that "notification" should come up for you.

You've got some new ideas to sleep on.

To me this single line can teach two things:

1. There's probably a natural point of pausing in our consumption of new things in a single day.

2. Rest (sleep or some other powerful form of rest) is what we need to actually grow from that consumption.

***

Let's call this natural point where we should pause our consumption our saturation point.

Once we hit our saturation point, that's when can imagine the notification popping up. You've got some new ideas to sleep on.

Once we pass our saturation point, we risk over-consumption, which could lead to less integration and possibly less growth.

If we're below our saturation point, we can afford to consume more.

***

How do you know what your saturation point is?

I don't know that it's a static point. In fact, I'm sure it's not.

This means that it's more likely for you to know when you're either below it or when you've passed it.

Perhaps the better question to ask is, what does it feel like for you when you're under-saturated or over-saturated?

That's probably enough to sleep on.